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Recent documents in Community Scholar Publicationsen-usFri, 12 Sep 2014 16:08:24 PDT3600Questions Put To Jesushttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/11
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/11Thu, 03 Apr 2014 08:40:18 PDT
This essay examines the living context in which Jesus Christ was subject to a constant stream of questions, requests, pleadings, taunts and tests. Friendly or hostile, sincere or tricky, selfish or compassionate, those approaching Jesus do not fit any simple mold, do not follow any approved procedure, do not always get what they seek, do not always appear to know what they want or even understand Jesus’ answers to their enquiries. I am more interested in the give and take, the unprepared dialogue, the inconclusive status of most of these encounters, than in any firm theological conclusions they entail. Theology has its place, but so does the casual superficial excursion through the day to day exchanges that confronted Jesus at every turn in the road. There is a truth worth considering in the confusion and befuddlement of those who encountered Jesus in so many different ways. There is much to be learned about them and about ourselves.
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William Paul HaasTechnology and Culture: Humans Inventing Themselveshttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/10
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/10Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:20:34 PDT
Since the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the god, Zeus, humans have been befuddled by their own cleverness. We make useful tools and devices which seem to free humans for higher pursuits only to discover that the unintended consequences demand that newer and even more clever devices be invented. Sooner or later we find out that the instruments of our technologies are shaping our destiny rather than the other way around. Throughout history this struggle has gone on till the present when the consequences of technological progress seem to many to be overwhelming. If culture is the cultivation of the best in mankind, a new kind of challenge faces us.
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William Paul HaasHumanitiesAbraham's Follyhttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/9
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/9Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:23:28 PDT
This study is a philosophical reflection, not a formal exegesis, on the text of Genesis 12-22, tracing the interaction between Abraham and God, which led gradually to the Akedah, the binding of Isaac on the altar of sacrifice. The study rests on the hypothesis that Abraham, under the wise tutelage of Yahweh, slowly discovered that he had profoundly misunderstood God, thinking that God, like all the other gods Abraham had known, would eventually demand the sacrifice of his son as a condition for his having any more offspring.

In the light of this assumption attention of given to the rich diversity of insights into the many problems posed by the narrative of Genesis which are found in the various Hebrew traditions, ancient and contemporary, in Christian reflections, in the mystical meditations of Jews and Christians and in the hostile rejection of all divine interventions and revelations, especially against the story of Abraham as a dangerous and pernicious myth.

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William Paul HaasReligionCaught Laughinghttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/8
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/8Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:49:50 PDT
This is an address delivered to the International Society for Humor Studies in 2007. The question was posed: why is there so much laughter in the Book of Genesis? The Bible was not held up to ridicule or laughed at because it told funny stories. The sacred scriptures were examined to discover what seems odd and out of place both in the events of Abraham’s life and adventures narrated in the text and in the narrative text it self. Not agreeing with those who see the very idea of a divine-human exchange as simply silly, or even dangerously ridiculous, the address suggests that God has the last laugh as he leads those willing to follow, however reluctantly, to discover how ridiculous life would be without a God teasing us to guess at what comes next.
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William Paul HaasTouro Synagoguehttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/7
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/7Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:02:54 PDT
Touro Synagogue, in Newport, RI, is the oldest Jewish temple in uninterrupted use in the US. Every year the temple rereads the letter sent by George Washington to the congregation pledging the new government to the protection of the freedom of religion. This present address, delivered in 2010, notes that Newport was a point on the journey of the first generations of Jews in America, not unlike the journey of Abraham, a journey into a strange land, inhabited by strange gods, in search of the God who exceeds all expectations. The journey continues to this day, to the outer horizon, which always lies beyond our reach and to the inner horizon where God waits patiently for us, more intimately aware of our searching than we are of ourselves.
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William Paul HaasStrategies for Lifehttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/6
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/6Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:02:52 PDT
Recently there has been much controversy and misunderstanding in the United States about the position of certain Catholic politicians who profess to be believing Christians and yet defend the right of others to abortion within the limits of the law. Unfortunately there is too little awareness of the rights and responsibilities of all individuals to follow their consciences, even when they are in error on such profound ethical issues as life and death. This essay explores the theological and philosophical tradition, which affirms the binding force of conscience in error, indeed before God. It also examines many of the formal pronouncements of the Church on the sacredness of life while it considers in detail several instances in history and in the current situations where the failure to respect the legitimate claims of conscience has rendered less effective the Catholic Church’s defense of life at its earliest manifestations. Proclaiming and condemning, necessary as the might be, are no substitute for effective teaching. This failure also impedes the efforts of those who would work diligently to save the lives of the unborn in cooperation with others who, in good conscience, do not agree totally with the teaching of the Church and who reserve the individual right to form their own consciences according to their better judgment and their actual experience.
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William Paul HaasNatural Law Naturally Changeshttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/5
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/5Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:01:38 PDT
For as long as there has been human morality, questions have risen about “natural law,” What is it? How do we know we have it? Is natural law the same for everyone? Every nation? Every religion? Is natural law God’s voice in each of us? Does Natural Law change? How can that be? There appears to be a soft consensus that all human beings have at least one thing in common, they are more or less rational or reasonable. Beyond that there is much uncertainty, disagreement, aggravation and hostility. Like music, morality can be seen as structured or free-flowing, it can be self-evident or impossible to comprehend, it can be the unifying force of human history or the cause of endless hostility. But, the suspicion or hope endures that when humans act more or less rationally they act more or less according to their nature.

Thomas Aquinas, one of the most persuasive exponents of natural law morality is often misrepresented as holding that natural law is a set of rigid and inflexible self-evident principles. There is another view of Aquinas’ insight into human morality which acknowledges that the universe in which humans learn to function is more or less contingent, sometime orderly, sometimes chaotic. The natural world does not always work perfectly, sometime reversing itself, frustrating its own purposes, and sometimes making it difficult or impossible for the human to be certain which principles apply to which facts and when. This essay introduces the reader to this view of a changeable natural law, which does not deny the validity of moral principles but affirms their applicability to a very imperfect and changing natural world.

Originally published 1965; Revised 2012.

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William Paul HaasMary and the Koranhttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/4
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/4Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:01:36 PDT
It is surprising to many Christians that the sacred writings of Mohammed refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, with such profound respect, even reverence. The Koran stands as a remarkable witness to the Christian and Muslim conviction that Mary played an intimate part in God’s plans for all of mankind. Mary is mentioned by name in the Koran about 35 times, and Jesus is often called, Jesus, the son of Mary. There are, of course, vast differences between the Christian view of Mary and the Islamic view, yet there is no reason to believe that Mohammed deliberately misrepresented any particular Christian beliefs: he simple took at face value the vision of those Christians around him.
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William Paul HaasA Timely Witnesshttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/3
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/3Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:01:34 PDT
At the end of the second thousand years of Christianity Pope John Paul II urged the Catholic Church to look candidly at the “sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead offering to the world the witness of life inspired by the value of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal.” This essay explores some of the moments in history to which the Pope points, for the purpose of better understanding where we find ourselves today as the result of those past failures and then to try to discern what needs to be done now.
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William Paul HaasC.S. Peirce's Abduction from the Prior Analyticshttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/2
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/2Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:08:16 PSTWilliam Paul HaasHands Respectful and Clean: Cajetan and the Reformationhttp://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/1
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/comm_scholar_pubs/1Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:05:35 PST
Tomasso de Vio (1469-1534), later known as Cardinal Cajetan, was a well-respected philosopher and theologian who became progressively more enmeshed in the religious and political turmoil of the sixteenth century. He struggled to understand the thrust of Luther's new way of thinking and to bring the Church to deal with the challenge of radical reform in all aspects of Church life. Some of the changes which the Cardinal recommended to several of the popes he served seemed as revolutionary in his own day as they would in the present. Gradually his perception of the Church as an inclusive rather than an exclusive community evolved.

This essay is not intended to be the last word on Cardinal Cajetan's role in the emerging Reformation. Rather, it tries to trace Cajetan's efforts to understand the personalities and forces which both propelled and resisted the unavoidable crisis. He explored every way conceivable to keep the Church intact: in its governance, in its doctrine and discipline, and in its tolerance of error and confusion. Cajetan may well have failed in most of his initiatives, but he stands as a persuasive example of the Church's need at all times for courageous intellectual witnesses, not afraid to think through the roots of the Church's predicament and the solutions it ought to examine.